Plain water is the only consumable permitted inside the vast cavern at Carlsbad Caverns National Park in New Mexico.
Snacks like Cheetos are strictly prohibited, and when a recent visitor dropped a bag of them, it had a significant effect on the cave’s delicate ecosystem, park rangers reported Friday on Facebook.
“From a human perspective, a spilled snack may seem insignificant, but for the cave’s environment, it can be transformative,” the park explained in its post regarding the trash found off-trail in the Big Room.
“The processed corn snack, softened by the cave’s humidity, became an ideal habitat for microbial life and fungi. Cave crickets, mites, spiders, and flies quickly formed a temporary food web, dispersing nutrients to the surrounding cave environment and its formations.
Molds spread across nearby surfaces, sprouting, decaying, and releasing unpleasant odors, perpetuating the cycle.”
Carlsbad Caverns National Park – New Mexico (Photo: Sathish Jothikumar)Park rangers spent 20 minutes carefully removing the molds and foreign debris from the cave surfaces. They noted that while some organisms from the snacks were native cave dwellers, “many of the microbial life and molds were not.”
The park emphasized that this particular damage was “completely avoidable,” especially compared to the inevitable lint trails left by visitors.
“No matter how big or small, we all leave an impact wherever we go. Let’s all strive to leave the world better than we found it,” the post encouraged visitors.
The park’s website also stresses that consuming anything other than plain water attracts animals into the cavern, disrupting its ecosystem.
The Big Room at Carlsbad Caverns National Park is the largest cave chamber by volume in North America. It can be accessed via a relatively flat 1.25-mile (2 km) trail. This cavern formed millions of years ago when sulfuric acid dissolved limestone, creating its extensive cave passages.